Monday, September 10, 2007

Classroom Management

I decided to tighten up my classroom management style and the discipline in my class. It hasn't been bad (by my standards) but I decided to try some different tactics today.

I tried to nip potentially disruptive situations in the bud before they got out of hand. Monday is a good day to do that for my class because most of the students are tired and sluggish from the weekend. On the weekends they usually don't have bedtimes (even my kindergartners). On Mondays the kids are sleepy and low key.

I always hated the idea of classroom management because it isn't really something you can be taught but it is something that has to be learned. Going through teacher training in college I always dreaded classroom management the most. I didn't want to be a teacher because of that. I love to teach students who want to learn. But, if they don't want to learn, I don't want them in my class.

My technique (if you can call it that) is based on expectations. I set very high expectations for myself and for the students in the class and I want them to live up to those expectations. All students consciously or unconsciously seemingly have a desire to please the authority figure. When the students don't meet my expectations, I show them how disappointed I am. So the next time they try to please me by acting appropriately or learning the material.

I am not sure it is the best technique but it works for me because I am not an authoritarian teacher and the soft spoken approach doesn't work because I lack the needed amount of empathy.

Went to What the Hay on Mon 9-10-07. Took some really good pictures (82 of 'em), then had them developed at Wally World, but they just developed the 1st 60, then gave me 2 copies of the 1st 22 pictures. We lost the last 22 pictures we took. Of course I deleted the pictures off my memory card as soon as we received the hard copies of the pics.

Classroom management...scary subject here in my part of western Montana.

I have one class that I'm trying to use the disappointment technique on. Its mostly upperclassmen that should be trying harder. All I'm really getting is that I seem to expect more than any other teacher they've had in school.

Other classes seem to regress with the authority figure - disappointment tactic. Still learning what I need to do up here.

But on the bright side my little froshmore football team is 1-0. Now if I could just get FFA to that point.

so now that it's january, how have your techniques been working? i'm a brand new teacher in korea and i find classroom management to be the hardest part of teaching!! in our school, all classes have a sticker board. if the kids behave well, they get a sticker. it works pretty well because whoever has the most stickers at the end of the week or month gets a prize.